But if you go back to the first 5 or 6 years of St.Lukes...Boots No7 'Be Extraordinary not Ordinary' colours campaign directed by tomato is one of my favorite campaigns ever. Also, other work that stands out was Clarks 'Act your show size not your age', Radio One 'as it is', Ikea - chuck out your chintz and several other subsequent campaigns like the one that linked furniture tastes with personality traits. Or the one that announced IKEA were banning people with facial hair from its Nottingham store. Or the Glasgow store opening campaign. The Clarks Go walking this weekend prints ads. The Erik Cantona Eurostar ad. The BT Broadband burst pipe campaign.If you do a bit of research, you'll discover that some of the most original and freshest work of the start of the decade came from St.Lukes. Oh, and S.lukes were very strict on not letting production companies that they worked with enter awards either.

I'm still not that impressed. They have a reputation way beyond their work. Half the stuff you mentioned is decent, 7.5/10 stuff and definitely no 10s. Chuck out your chintz was awful and Burst Pipe truly dire.

It's about opinions, eh?

And why would they be strict in that way with production companies? I thought the issue was the waste of money, and if they wanted the entire place credited, it would have been fine to enter it under St Luke's. AND there's an Ikea campaign in D&AD from a few years ago, so not that strict after all. I think the work was entered and no one gave a fuck. It seems the most likely explanation. After all, the Boots colours might have got in but little else.

Obviously, BBH, Wiedens, Fallon, AMV. Over that period I can't really name any St Luke's ads, so I guess all the other agencies in the UK.

What's this 'wide range' stipulation? St Luke's so one 'trick' of nicey-nicey that they've replicated over all their accounts to general indifference/boredom. Really, just look at the actual ads. One blah after another. One style and we all got bored. Clients got bored. It should slink off to a corner of Euston and die quietly.

What it did do was introduce a unique tone of voice into advertising that didn't exist before.

Its easy to judge the work by todays standard and call it 'B' rate but at the time it was distinctive and like nothing else coming out of any other agency. Save perhaps HHCL to a lesser degree. Of course the style was quickly copied and so now appears less surprising. It wasn't afraid to explore different untested ways for brands to connecting to consumers strategically and executionally. And like any true pioneer didn't always get it right, And its work often wouldn't chime with the creative fraternity. But it never sought to win over award juried, that was never its aim. I actually think advertising is much more interesting for St.Lukes. Allbeit brief intervention. And, I would also be so bold as to suggest it fundamentally changed the way ad agencies work with clients and created the blue print for the modern agency. I think for example it opened up the doors for agencies like Mother.

When I was doing the placement rounds a few years back, we used to go and see two lovely chaps there with our book, Colin and Seyoan. There always seemed to be a great vibe about the place and I always really admired the agencies work for Clark's and Ikea, and more...always great, fresh thinking.

As far as I know, the reason they don't enter awards (and the same reason Karmarama don't) is because creative teams end up doing work purely to win awards and therefore not for the good of the client..so doing work they think/know the awards juries will like, rather than what is right for the brand.

Did that work out for them? The other agencies who do enter awards did, on average, better work. Just proves that doing work to win awards can/does result in great cut-through and memorability. So if that was the idea, it was a crap one.

1) To win award, the work must generally adhere to a set of established rules and standards. It was felt that by factoring awards out of the equation, creatives would feel more liberated and free to be truely origial in their approach.

2) Most Awards only recognise the creative team. Yet the way St.Lukes worked (that being the project team system - a quartet of a planner, account man, art director, copywriter.) it was unfair to credit just two member of the team responsible for the work.

3) The company was run as a co-operative. Which meant everyone had an equal financial the agency. Awards cost a lot of money to enter. So again, why should receptionists and TV producers and art buyers and Account men pay so that creatives can get awards?

You could argue that awards benefit the agency in the way of creating new business oppurtunity, and therefore benefits everyone indirectly. Hwver, during its hey day, St.Lukes had no shortage of new business approaches so this argument didn't hold much weight.

Infact, the fact that the agency was very vocal about not entering awards, probably gained it just as many column inches as winning some awards would have done! And of course it was another USP which set it apart from its competition.

By the way, has anyone read Pamela Stephenson's sex advice column in the Guardian today?

Question: My partner can keep going for a long time, but almost never reaches orgasm. The result? Discomfort for me and he ends up draining a bottle of Chareau de Frustration...

Isn't that just priceless? Sorry it's not about St Luke's. I can make it about St Luke's. They speant a while pouring Chateau de Hype for everyone. Everyone realised it was it was actually Chateau de Bullshit and now they're drinking Chateau de Dying Shithole.

Would anyone from St Luke's like to comment or have they instigated a new rule this week where email is to be replaced by carrier pigeons.

The only funny thing about Chuck Out Your Chintz was the Frank Skinner spoof, Chuck Out Your Chimps.

I was working at Y&R when the agency of the year call was made. My boss, Mike Cozens (2 D&AD golds), immediately wrote a letter to Campaign asking why the agency that produced Blackcurrant Tango wasn't agency of the year, while the agency that produced Chuck Out Your Chintz was. To their credit, Campaign did print it.

Hmmm Not sure about The Busby Babes analogy Mark. Didn't quite a lot of them perish in a hideous plane crash? Even the worst beating up at a creative review with Trotty can't have been quite that gruesome. Could it?

Well done Scamp, very funny post. They're right, St.Luke's is no longer the creative force it once was, but it did do some pretty good work in the early days. But I do sympathise with them, it was done off their own backs, not with some nice sugar daddy in the background helping them out like Weidens or Fallons, so it's sad how it's panned out. And remember all companies have bad patches. BBH is hardly in a purple patch creatively is it? I'm sure John Hegarty or even Mike '2Golds' Cousins would be really proud of the great work done for Woolworths/ British Airways/ Natwest/ Flora. etc etc.As for Anonymous who is posting at 2.48 in the morning. Poppers and blogging doesn't work.